Herman nodded, and all three listened some more. When the line sounded, they pushed the door open, walked through, turned left and headed back downstairs.

The timing was perfect. As they came to the foot of the stairs the curtain came down on Act One, and people started up the aisle for a smoke break. The three men pulled their masks off and went through the lobby doors just ahead of the theatergoers. They crossed the lobby, went out to the sidewalk, and the Ford was half a block away to their left, coming along behind a slow-cruising cab.

“God damn it,” Van said. “What’s the matter with Phil’s timing?”

“He probably got stuck at a red light,” Herman said.

The Ford slipped by the cab and stopped at their feet. They slid in, the sidewalk behind them filled with smokers, and Phil drove them casually but firmly away from there.

The two shopping bags were in the back with Herman and Jack — Van was up front now — and every time they went over a pothole the damn phone tinkled, which began to drive Herman up the wall. He was a compulsive phone answerer, and there was no way to answer this phone.

Also, the money was getting to him. He was glad to give his expertise to the Movement, help the Movement cover its expenses in the time-honored fashion of the IRA, but at times he could feel his palm itching to hold onto some of the cash he got for them this way. As he’d told his guests a little earlier tonight, he had expensive tastes.

It wouldn’t be so bad if he had some private scores going, but it had been almost a year since he’d been involved in a non-political robbery, and the money from that last caper was just about gone. He needed something soon, or he’d be eating that black bread without the caviar.

They were heading up Central Park West when Phil said, “Do I hear a phone? I keep thinking I hear a phone.”

Van said, “Jack stole their phone.”

Herman could see Phil frowning as he drove. “He stole their phone? Why? Just to be mean?”

“I need an extension for my bedroom,” Jack said. “Lemme see if I can get it to be quiet.” He took it out of the bag and held it in his lap, and it didn’t tinkle as much after that.

Jack having moved the phone had dislodged some of the crumpled paper, and Herman could see green down in there. A hundred dollars, he thought, for expenses. But there was no point in it; a hundred dollars wouldn’t come near his expenses.

They let him off across the street from his building. They headed on uptown, and Herman sprinted across the street and inside. He went around to the service elevator, rode it up to his floor, and pushed the 1 button to send it back down again when he got off. He entered his kitchen and Mrs. Olaffson said, “Everything’s all right.”

“Good.”

“They’re getting drunk.”

“Very good. You can serve any time.”

“Yes, sir.”

He walked through the apartment to the living room and noted the shifts that had taken place in his absence. Several of them, but primarily involving George and Linda Lachine.

George and Susan were sitting together now, George with a rather fatuous smile on his face while Susan talked to him, and Linda was standing over on the opposite side of the room, trying to look as though she were admiring the W. C. Fields print.

Rastus and Diane were still together, Rastus now with his hand on Diane’s leg. The tinkling telephone and the reminder of his money worries had put Herman in a bad mood and left him feeling unable to cope with the complexities that Rastus would have to offer. So it was heterosexual time; why not?

First he had to make some general comments to the general group, who greeted his return with comments about how long he’d been away. “You know those people,” he said with a dismissing wave of the hand. “They can’t do anything on their own, not a thing.”

“Problems?” Foster asked. He had come with Diane but seemed uninterested in leaving with her.

“Nothing they can’t handle by themselves,” he said and gave everybody a brisk grin as he rounded the coffee table and headed for Linda.

But he didn’t get there. Mrs. Olaffson appeared again, in a rerun, complete with the same dialogue: “Telephone, sir.”

Herman looked at her, for just a second too bewildered to speak. He couldn’t say, “My call from the Coast?” because that was all over now. He very nearly said, “We’ve done that bit,” but stopped himself in time. Finally, out of desperation, he said, “Who is it?”

“He just said it was a friend, sir.”

“Listen,” Rastus drawled in that Southern-cracker voice he liked to use when irritated, “ain’t we never gonna eat?”

“All right,” Herman said. To Rastus, to Mrs. Olaffson, to everybody. “I’ll make this one fast,” he promised grimly, strode from the room, went down the hall, and bashed his nose painfully when he turned the knob on the study door without stopping and the door turned out still to be locked. “God damn!” he said, his eyes tearing and his nose smarting. Holding his nose — he reminded himself of that usher — he trotted around through the kitchen and into the study that way. Dropping into the director’s chair, he picked up the receiver and said, “Yes!”

“Hello, Herman?”

“Yeah, that’s right. Who’s this?”

“Kelp.”

Herman’s spirits suddenly lifted. “Well, hello,” he said.

“Been a long time.”

“You sound like you got a cold.”

“No, I just hit my nose.”

“What?”

“Never mind,” Herman said. “What’s happening?”

“Depends,” Kelp said. “You available?”

“Never better.”

“This is still a maybe.”

“Which is better than a nothing,” Herman said.

“That’s true,” Kelp said with some surprise, as though he’d never thought that out before. “You know the 0. J. Bar?”

“Sure.”

“Tomorrow night, eight-thirty.”

Herman frowned. There was a screening he’d been invited to … No. As he’d told his guests, he had expensive tastes, and as he’d told Kelp, a maybe was better than a nothing. “I'll be there,” he said.

“See you.”

Herman hung up and reached for a Kleenex. Smiling, he wiped the tears from his eyes, then carefully unlocked the study door and went out to the hall, where Mrs. Olaffson greeted him with “Dinner is ready, sir.”

“And so am I,” he said.

10

Victor stood smiling in the elevator. This building, on Park Avenue in the seventies, had been built at the turn of the century, but the elevator dated from 1926 and looked it. Victor had seen identical elevators in old movies — the dark wood, the waist-high brass rail, the smoke-tinted mirror, the corner light fixtures like brass skyscrapers upside down. Victor felt embraced by the era of the pulps and gazed around with a happy smile as he and his uncle rode up to the seventeenth floor.

Kelp said, “What the hell you grinning at?”

“I’m sorry,” Victor said contritely. “I just liked the looks of the elevator.”

“This is a medical doctor we’re going to,” Kelp said. “Not a psychiatrist.”

“All right,” Victor said soberly.

“And remember to let me do the talking.”

Earnestly, Victor said, “Oh, I will.”

He was finding this whole operation fascinating. Dortmunder had been perfect, Murch and his Mom had been perfect, the back room of the 0. J. Bar and Grill had been perfect, and the steps being taken to put the job together were perfect. Even Dortmunder’s obvious reluctance to let Victor participate was perfect; it was only right that the old pro wouldn’t want to work with the rank amateur. But Victor knew that by the finish he would have had opportunity to demonstrate his value. The thought made him smile again, until he felt Kelp’s eyes on him, when he immediately wiped the smile away.

“It’s unusual that I’d even bring you along,” Kelp said as the elevator door opened and they stepped out together into the seventeenth-floor foyer. The doctor’s door, with a discreet name plate, was to the left. Kelp said, “He might not even want to talk in front of you.”